如果看过谷歌的介绍,可能你会不由得想到一个词—神话。这说的不光是拉里·佩奇和谢尔盖·布林两个博士没读完的辍学生在硅谷的车库里创业,最后建成了市值超过IBM(甚至有人预测五年后会超越微软)的IT巨擎的传奇故事,说的还是谷歌里面那令无数打工族垂涎万尺的企业文化:牛仔裤、T-shirt衫的随意穿着,美餐、中餐、印度餐等一应俱全的大食堂,免费就医、洗衣、洗车的服务,甚至可以带上狗狗和滑板车一起上班……
谷歌的故事,举世瞩目。创始人的生活也为人津津乐道。今年5月,拉里·佩奇获邀在母校密歇根大学的毕业典礼上发表演讲。虽然已是成功典范,但拉里并没有夸夸其谈,他用诚挚的语言讲述自己家庭背景和人生经历,告诉大家人生中最宝贵的两样东西—梦想和亲友。
Class of 2009! First I’d like you to stand up, and wave and cheer your supportive family and friends! I’m sure you can find them out there. Show your love!
2009届的同学们,首先我希望大家都站起来,向支持你们的亲朋好友挥手致意!我相信你们都能在人群中找到他们,把你们的爱表现出来吧!
A long time ago, in this cold September of 1962, there was a Steven’s 1)co-op at this very university. That co-op had a kitchen with a ceiling that had been cleaned by student volunteers probably every decade or so. Picture a college girl named Gloria, climbing up high on a ladder, struggling to clean that 2)filthy ceiling. Standing on the floor, a young 3)boarder named Carl was admiring the view. And that’s how they met. They were my parents, so I suppose you could say I’m a direct result of that kitchen chemistry experiment, right here at Michigan.
很久以前,1962年的寒冷9月,这座校园里有一家史蒂文消费合作社。此合作社有一间厨房,那里的天花板由学生志愿者打扫,大概每十来年才一次吧。想象一下,画面上有位名叫格洛里亚的女大学生,爬上了高高的梯子,努力地打扫那脏兮兮的天花板。一位名叫卡尔的寄宿生站在地上,为该情景钦佩不已。这就是他俩的初次邂逅。他俩就是我的父母亲。所以我想你们会说,我就是这里——密歇根大学那个“厨房化学实验”的直接成果。
Everyone in my family went here to Michigan: my brother, my Mom, my Dad—all of us. My father’s father worked in the Chevy plant in Flint, Michigan. He was an assembly line worker. He drove his two children here to Ann Arbor, and told them: That is where you’re going to college. I know it sounds funny now. Both of his kids actually did graduate from Michigan. That was the American dream.
我们家的所有成员都毕业于密歇根大学:我哥哥、我妈妈和爸爸——我们全家。我的祖父在密歇根州弗林特的雪佛兰汽车工厂工作,他是装配线上的一名工人。他曾开车把两个孩子送到安娜堡这儿,并告诉他们:这是你们今后要上的大学。我知道现在听起来很好笑。他的两个孩子也的确从密歇根大学毕业。这就是“美国梦”。
What I’m trying to tell you, this is WAY more than a homecoming for me. I have a story about following dreams. Or maybe more accurately, it’s a story about finding a path to make those dreams real.
我想告诉大家的是,来这儿对我的意义绝对不仅仅是重回旧地。我有个关于追寻梦想的故事,或者更确切地说,这是一个找到梦想成真之路的故事。
You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know how, if you don’t have a pencil and 4)pad by the bed, it will be completely gone by the next morning?
你们知道,午夜从一个逼真的梦境中醒来是什么感觉吗?你们知道如果床边没有纸笔,而第二天一早就忘个精光又会怎样吗?
Well, I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking: What if we could download the whole web, and just keep the links? And I grabbed a pen and started writing! Sometimes it’s important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night 5)scribbling out the details and convincing myself it would work. Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks for me to download the web—he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough not to tell me. The 6)optimism of youth is often underrated! Amazingly, at that time, I have no thoughts building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking and we made a really great search engine, and Google was born. When a really great dream shows up, grab it!
喔,我23岁的时候,就做过一个那样的梦。我猛然惊醒,想着:如果我们能把整个网络下载下来,但仅保存链接会怎样?然后我抓起一支笔写了起来。有时候别做梦,及时醒来是非常重要的。我花了一个午夜描画出细节,并确信那是可以做得到的。不久后,我告诉我的导师特里·温诺格拉德,那要花几周时间来下载整个网络——他只是会意地点点头,他完全知道要花的时间其实长得多,但他很睿智,并没有告诉我。年轻人的乐观精神通常不可低估!令人惊讶的是,我当时没有想过要造一个搜索引擎。这一概念甚至没有进入我脑海。但很久以后,我们突然找到更好排列网页的方法,并造出一个非常好的搜索引擎——谷歌就这样诞生了。当伟大的梦想闪现时,抓住它吧!
When I was here at Michigan, I had actually been taught how to make dreams real! I know it sounds funny, but that is what I learned in a summer camp 7)converted into a training program called Leadershape. Their slogan is to have a “healthy disregard for the impossible”. That program encouraged me to pursue a crazy idea at the time: I wanted to build a personal rapid transit system on campus to replace the buses. I still think a lot about transportation—you never loose a dream, it just 8)incubates as a hobby. Many things people labor hard to do now, like cooking, cleaning, and driving will require much less human time in the future. That is, if we “have a healthy disregard for the impossible” and actually build the solutions.
我在密歇根大学上学时,其实就学过如何实现梦想。我知道这听起来很可笑,但那是我从一个由夏令营转化而来的名为“塑造领袖”的培训项目中学到的。该项目的口号就是“理性地藐视不可能”。那个项目激励着我追寻那时一个疯狂的想法:我想在校园内建立一套个人快速交通系统以代替公交。我直到现在还在思考很多有关交通的问题—你永不要放走梦想,而要把它当作一种习惯去培育。现在人们花很大力气干的很多事情,如做饭、清洁、驾驶,以后只会占用人们更少的时间。也就是说,如果我们“理性地藐视不可能”,并确实找到新的解决方案的话。
I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. I know that sounds completely nuts. But, since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you’ll have little competition. The best people want to work on the big challenges. That is what happened with Google. Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally 9)accessible and useful. How can that not get you excited? But we almost didn’t start Google, actually, because my co-founder Sergey and I were too worried about dropping out of the Ph.D. program. You are probably on the right track if you feel like a sidewalk worm during a rainstorm! That is about how we felt after we maxed out three credit cards buying hard disks off the back of a truck. That was actually the first hardware for Google. Parents and friends: more credit cards always help. What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!
我认为,通常追寻雄心万丈的梦想更容易些。我知道这听起来完全是一派胡言。不过,既然没有别的人疯狂到会做这件事情,你就没有竞争对手了。优秀的人爱接受大挑战。这就是在谷歌发生的事情。我们的目标就是组合全球的信息,使其随手可得,随处可用。那怎么能不让大家兴奋呢?但是我们那时几乎启动不成谷歌,因为我和联合创始人谢尔盖都太担心拿不到博士学位。要是你觉得自己是暴风雨下人行道上的一条蚯蚓,那很可能你就真的走对路了。那就是我们刷爆了三张信用卡,从一辆货车的车尾买来硬盘后的感觉。那就是谷歌最早的硬件设备。家长和朋友们:多点信用卡总是有用的。如何用一句话总结你该如何改变世界?那就是在那些让人极度兴奋的事情上发奋努力。
As a Ph.D. student, I actually had three projects I wanted to work on. Thank goodness my advisor said, “Why don’t you work on the web for a while?” Technology and especially the Internet can really help you be lazy. Lazy? What I mean is a group of three people can write software that then millions can use and enjoy. Can three people answer the phone a million times? Find the 10)leverage in the world, so you can be truly lazy!
当我在读博士的时候,其实我有三个项目是想做的。谢天谢地,我的导师对我说,“为什么你不先做一会网络的事呢?”科技,尤其是因特网真的能让人变懒。变懒?我的意思是一个三人的小组可以写出让数百万人喜爱使用的软件程序。但三个人可以接上百万次电话吗?找到撬起地球的杠杆,你就能真的懒起来。
Overall, I know it seems like the world is
11)crumbling out there, but it is actually a great time in your life to get a little crazy, follow your curiosity, and be ambitious about it. Don’t give up on your dream. The world needs you all!
总而言之,我知道这个世界看起来分崩离析,但这确是你们人生中一个伟大的时代,你们可以疯狂一点,追随自己的好奇心,雄心勃勃地实现它。不要放弃你们的梦想。世界需要你们所有人。
So here’s my final story:
On a day like today, you might feel 12)exhilarated—like you’ve just been shot out of a cannon at the circus—and even invincible. Don’t ever forget that incredible feeling. But also: always remember that the moments we have with friends and family, the chances we have to do things that might make a big difference in the world, or even to make a small difference to the ones we love—all those wonderful chances that life gives us, life also takes away. It can happen fast, and a whole lot sooner than you think.
以下是我要说的最后一个故事:
就像今天的某一日,你们可能感到欣喜若狂,就像你刚从马戏团的大炮口被射了出来——甚至更加所向无敌。绝不要忘了那种难以名状的美妙感觉,但同时,也要永远记住和亲朋好友相聚的时刻,记住我们得做些可能会为世界带来巨变的事情的机会,或者只是为你所爱的人带来小变化的机会——所有生活给予我们美好机会,也能将它们带走。世事瞬息万变,比你设想的要快得多。
In late March 1996, soon after I had moved to Stanford for grad school, my Dad had difficulty breathing and drove to the hospital. Two months later, he died. I was completely 13)devastated. Many years later, after a startup, after falling in love, and after so many of life’s adventures, I found myself thinking about my Dad.
1996年3月下旬,就在我到斯坦福上研究生院不久,我爸爸呼吸出现困难,被送到医院。两个月后,他去世了。我当时几近崩溃了。许多年以后,在我重新振作后,在我谈恋爱后,在我体验了如此多的人生经历后,我发现自己总是想起我的爸爸。
If my Dad were alive today, the thing I think he would be most happy about is that Lucy and I have a baby 14)in the hopper. If he were here today, well, it would be one of the best days of his life.
如果我爸爸能活到今天,我想他最开心的莫过于看到露西和我即将拥有自己的孩子。如果他今天也能来到这里,噢,那将会是他人生中最美好的日子之一。
Many of us are fortunate enough to be here with family. Some of us have dear friends and family to go home to. Please keep them close and remember: They are what really matters in life.
Thanks, Mom; Thanks, Lucy.
And thank you, all, very much.
我们中很多人都很幸运,能够在这里和家人们一起。我们中的一些还可以和亲友家人一起回家。请和他们保持亲密,并且记住:他们才是生命中真正至关重要的。
感谢妈妈,感谢露西。
同时,十分感谢大家。
